Down a Parallel Road
by liptonrm
Summary: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Inspired by the idea, 'What if Bobby had a kid'


Disclaimer: I own nothing, except for the parts that are totally mine and nobody else's. Eric Kripke owns the rest of it, at least, the parts of it not owned by his corporate overlords. Now that I know that you know that I know that you know we can get on with the fic.

Spoilers: Set pre-series, so only general spoilers for the show. Dean is 12, Sam is 8.

Author's Note: Once upon a time I idly thought to my self, 'Self, what if Bobby had a kid?' And then my brain took off running and wouldn't stop until a whole big thing had exploded out of it. I'd like to blame the usual suspects, such as hiyacynth and the baylorsrs, but I've derived so much enjoyment out of it all that I think they deserve my unceasing gratitude instead. I'd also like to thank dotfic, alchehmilla, and inniedarling for commenting with variations on, "You know, this isn't half bad," rather than the, "OMG, you crazy person," I may very well still deserve. All praise to them, all blame to me, as is only right.

**January, 1991**

Bobby had no fucking clue what to do with the dirty, wide-eyed ... waif who woke up scared and jittery in the tiny space behind the bench seat in the cab of his truck. He isn't even sure how he'd failed to notice her there in the first place. He hadn't even realized she was there until he'd gotten back home and shut the damn engine off, until she'd made some noise and he'd finally looked back to see her huddled up small in the corner furthest from the steering wheel. When he'd seen her back there he'd wanted to curse and scream as he hadn't in a long while. The last thing he needed was for social services to fall on him like some sort of biblical plague.

Maybe he'd felt sorry for the kid, or maybe he remembered what it was like to be small and alone, but whatever the reason he hadn't yelled and he hadn't picked her up by her scruff and put her out on the road where she belonged. Instead he'd grunted, "There's food in the house," and turned around and gone inside, sure to leave the door open behind him. He hadn't been surprised to hear the screen door squeak open and shut minutes later accompanied by the silent whoosh of the storm door closed carefully after it.

He also wasn't surprised, more resigned really, when she passed the first test with flying colors. Reagan came right up to her and offered his head up for a good scratch without even a hint of challenge. Meant the kid was either more dangerous then any kid that size had any right being or she was one of the good ones. It could still go, and had in the past gone, either way.

'Course, she passed the second test when she let some dog that probably weighed more than she did jump up and slobber all over her and her with a tiny little grin as her only response.

The third test came in the form of holy water he slipped into her pop. By the time she stopped to take a sip she'd already worked up a mad eating frenzy that didn't slow one iota after she chugged half the glass. She'd walked past all of the wards and runes with ease so he figured that she probably wouldn't try to kill him in his sleep. Either way he'd put her back out on the road come morning. He'd never had any kids and there was a reason for that. Plus, if the constant strain around John Winchester's eyes was any indication, bringing a kid into this life wasn't an option, no matter how lost she might look.

She didn't say anything at all that night, just sat over in the corner with the dog and watched the room. That was all right 'cause he sure as hell wasn't looking for conversation. He noticed the way her eyes lingered longingly over the books piled on the floor but she didn't try to pick one up which was another good thing because the last thing he needed was some snotty kid messing up his organizational system.

The kid eventually curled up on the couch and fell asleep. He left her there when he decided to turn in for the night. She looked comfortable enough and it was better than anything she would've gotten anywhere else. He did pull a blanket over her, though. It got awfully cold at night.

He was up early the next morning, after a night spent dreaming about things best forgotten. He'd expected the kid to still be asleep and he planned to make her breakfast and send her on her way. When he walked into the front room she was still huddled on the couch with his mutt, the big traitor, but her head was bent studiously over one of his books. She was frowning in concentration but looked up a few seconds after he walked in the room, a couple things like guilt and apprehension flying across her face.

He could actually see her come to some kind of decision, could see it in the way her chin lifted and her eyes narrowed as she looked directly at him for the first time. By the way her hand was gripping Reagan's furry side she was nervous, but she didn't let it rule her and he could respect that.

"Can you show me how to protect people from the stuff in this book?" Her voice was quiet but determined and it was not at all what he'd been expecting to come out of her mouth. A question about food, maybe, or a plea to not turn her in to the authorities, possibly even a question about what kind of weirdo kept grimoires scattered around his house, but definitely not what he'd actually heard.

"Why do you wanna know?" He couldn't help but ask. Her mouth opened and closed without making a sound, and he could see the conflict clear as day on her face, but she only shrugged and bent her head back over the book. He nodded as if her non-reply made all the sense in the world and headed back to the kitchen to fix some grub.

He observed her later as she calmly and neatly ate the scrambled eggs and toast. Someone, somewhere had obviously taught her a thing or two at some point about table manners. She didn't even throw anything to the dog who was shamelessly begging for scraps by her chair. His mouth thinned as he mulled over what his next step was going to be. There was a puzzle here and he hated leaving things unsolved, but he was quite possibly the most unsuited person in the country to take care of some snot-nosed brat.

He watched her as she efficiently cleared her plate and nodded silent acquiescence to her unspoken request to put her plate on the floor for the dog. He sighed silently in defeat when he saw that same little grin break over her face when the dog jumped on her in appreciation. He supposed a couple more days to figure things out couldn't hurt.

"So, kid," he said as she picked the plate up off the floor. She looked up at him with wide, solemn eyes. "My name's Bobby. What am I supposed to call you?"

* * *

It was weird how much this greasy guy with a beard reminded her of her dad. He hadn't said much since breakfast, at least, not to her. She'd told him her name, where she was from, that she didn't have any family, and that had been all that she could physically say. After that her throat had closed off and he'd stopped asking her questions, almost like he knew that she couldn't answer even if she'd wanted to. He'd been on the phone ever since.

She looked down at the dog who had his head on her lap. He didn't look anything like Rocky. For one thing he was a lot bigger than her puppy. But she felt safe with him, just like she did with Rocky, like she could tell him her problems and he'd understand.

She swallowed around a lump in her throat and kept stroking his head. Bobby had called the dog Reagan. That was kind of funny, her mom hated President Reagan. She never would've thought that someone would ever name a dog after that guy.

She looked back down at the book on her other knee. The images blurred for a second but she blinked rapidly and they came back into focus. The pictures reminded her of what she'd seen in that book hidden in her grandma's attic crawlspace. The words were in Latin, but that didn't matter, the pictures were pretty descriptive all on their own. She paused on one that showed a person burning alive.

The phone in the other room slammed down and she looked up as Bobby walked in. "Just talked to the cops in Dearborn. They backed-up most of your story."

Rachel stiffened. "Did you tell them where I am?" She had to go, she had to cause he had to've told them. Her dad would've.

"Nope, figured I'd suss out the rest of it before doing anything like that." He sat down on the other end of the couch, his eyes level with hers. He wasn't talking to her like she didn't understand what was going on. It was almost like he actually thought she knew what she was talking about. It'd been a long time since anyone had listened to her opinion on anything.

"My grandma's book was like this." She handed the book to him and he took it gently. He treated books like they were important. "It was smaller, and in English, but the pictures were drawn the same way. There was a bookmark in it and the section said things about burning error and sin out of people. There was a notebook with it and she'd written down lots of things in it about phases of the moon and ingredients."

"So from that you figured that your grandma was a witch." He gave her a level look, letting the words speak for themselves.

She shrugged and lowered her eyes to look at the dusty couch. She scrunched up her mouth and looked back up, looked him directly in the eye. It was true and it didn't matter whether he believed her or not. "I don't know if she's a witch, but I know she used that spell thing to kill my family. I couldn't stay there after I knew that."

Bobby nodded. "I'm sure that's how it looks from your end. 'S'just a might queer, is all."

"I don't care how queer it seems, it's still true. She hated my mom and she didn't like that my dad stopped being a baptist and she wanted to set him straight so she did whatever it was that she did. She took them away." Rachel stopped, her throat dry. They were gone, her parents, her brothers, all of them. She tried so hard, but not thinking about them didn't bring them back.

Bobby nodded again, his eyes somber. "I believe you, girl. God help me, I do. But I have to have all my ducks in a row."

Rachel blinked and nodded silently. He believed her. She'd never thought anyone would, it was too crazy. But this guy actually listened to her and believed her.

He set the book carefully on the floor and then picked up her bag and handed it to her. "Why don't you go get washed up while I see about some grub. Bathroom's down the hall on the right."

Rachel nodded again and slipped past him. She stopped at the door and looked back. Bobby was standing by his desk, his head bent over another book. He really believed her.

* * *

**Summer, 1991**

It'd been months since they'd stop by the salvage yard but they were on their way up to Blue Earth and he knew he was two breaths from doing one of his boys permanent injury if they didn't all have a chance to get out and stretch their legs. John figured the boys'd get the chance to run around the yard and he'd have the benefit of some adult conversation, and maybe they'd all survive the rest of the drive in one piece. Anyway, it'd be nice to stop by and say howdy to Bobby when there wasn't any sort of emergency hanging over any of them.

He wasn't surprised to see Bobby out in the yard waiting for them when they drove up. The man knew his engines and the Impala wasn't exactly subtle. He did notice that that beast of a rottweiler wasn't bristling by Bobby's feet but he didn't make much of that observation, dog was probably occupied elsewhere.

The car doors creaked and the lot of them came tumbling out, the boys first and John more slowly. He could hear ever creak his body made as he unfolded himself from behind the wheel. By the time he was out the boys were already pushing each other around the yard to which sight Bobby only raised an amused eyebrow.

"Boys, manners," John ordered and they were standing tall and straight in an instant.

"Hello Mr. Singer," they sing-songed in unison and instantaneously turned to John, an unspoken plea for freedom written plainly across both of their faces.

"Hello boys," Bobby replied gruffly, eyes twinkling in amusement.

"All right, then. Go on," John released them with a grin and they shot off across the yard shoving and hassling each other as they went. He and Bobby shared identical amused grins as they shook hands.

"So, you got business in the area, John?" Bobby asked when he'd stepped back.

"Nah," John drawled. "We're just on our way up to Jim's place for a couple weeks and were passing by on the way. Figured it was better to let the boys out here than throw 'em out while I was driving."

Bobby chuckled. "Well then, glad you decided to drop by."

John was about to reply when he heard the screen door creak open. He looked up in time to see a girl no older than Dean step out, a carefully guarded look on her face. "Who's this, then?" John asked as she made her way down the steps.

"It's okay girl, come on over here," Bobby said to the kid, ignoring John's question for the moment. When she got up to them Bobby put a hand on her shoulder. "This is Mr. Winchester," He said and she nodded. "John, this is Rachel," Bobby finished and John shook the hand that she extended.

"Pleased to meet you." he said carefully.

"Yes sir," she replied just as carefully, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

"Why don't you run over and greet the boys," Bobby suggested and she nodded in reply, immediately heading off across the yard to where Dean and Sam were currently daring each other to climb up the closest junker. The dog appeared from somewhere in the yard to join her.

John regarded Bobby silently for a long moment and the man just stood there and took it as calm as may be. "So, see you're still taking in strays," John finally said with a wry twist to his mouth. Bobby just snorted in reply and resettled the frayed cap on top of his head.

* * *

"Dean," Sammy whispered and pointed back towards where their dad and Bobby were standing. "There's a girl coming towards us." His voice was mixed with equal parts despair and confusion with more then a little of that whine he always made when it looked like Dean was going to get the last cookie or something fun like that.

Dean rolled his eyes. "Yeah, so? It's just some boring girl."

"But what if she wants to play with us?" Oh yeah, that whine in Sammy's voice was definitely getting louder.

"We'll just tell her we aren't gonna have some stupid tea party and she'll figure out that we don't want her around." Dean wasn't worried. He was an old pro at getting dumb girls to go away.

Sammy's eyes got big and round when a new thought hit him. "But what if Dad or Uncle Bobby makes us play with her?"

Dean shoved him in the shoulder. "Don't be stupid. They'd never make us do anything dumb like that."

Sammy didn't seem very convinced but Dean didn't have the chance to say anything else because the girl had already started climbing up the car. She wasn't smiling, but she didn't look all prissy like some girls did when they got around him and Sammy, so that was something. Bobby's dog had come up to the car with her but sat himself down on the ground rather than climb up there after them, his tail twitching back and forth in the dust.

"Hi," she said, standing up on the hood of the car. She didn't say anything else, just pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and stared at them.

"Hi," Dean replied just as brusquely and returned her stare. He wasn't going to be beat by some girl.

They stayed like that for a very long time with Sammy getting more and more twitchy as the seconds ticked by. He knew that Sammy was going to surrender right before it happened but there was nothing he could do to stop him from opening his big fat mouth and spitting out in one breath, "I'm Sammy and this is Dean and what's your name?"

"Sammy," Dean hissed and shoved him in the arm again, this time hard enough for him to squawk an aborted i_ow_/i.

Something, whether it was Sammy's neverending dorkiness or the fact that she'd won the staring contest, actually made the girl smile. "I'm Rachel," she said. She didn't sound like she was laughing at them at all, like most girls did, which was good because then Dean'd have to push her off the car, and he'd be stuck doing laps for weeks which plain sucked.

"What are you smiling at?" Dean asked with narrowed eyes.

"Nothing," she shrugged, still grinning. "You just ..." she broke off quick, and suddenly looked a lot like Dad did when he was talking about Mom. She cleared her throat. "You just remind me of my brothers." And now she looked all serious again and Dean felt a little sad himself.

Sammy slipped past him and clambered down the windshield to stand in front of her. He pulled on the sleeve of her shirt and she looked right at him. "Let's play hide-n-go-seek." He turned to look at Dean with those extra big eyes of his. "You wanna play hide-n-go-seek?"

"Okay," Dean and the girl said in unison. She was smiling again by the time they all made it down off of the old car. Dean guessed that was okay.


End file.
